Symantec: Tapsnake Game Tracks Your Location

Symantec researchers reported a new malicious application in the virtual store Android Market, this application can determine users location in real time on AndroidOS.

Tapsnake is the name of the game which is a version of the popular game “Snake”. Game developers did not provide any information that the application sends each 15 minute victims specific location to a special server without the knowledge of user.

According to Symantec Developers describe the application as follows:

“Download and install the free Tap Snake game app from the Market to the phone you want to spy on. Press MENU and register the app to enable the service. Use the GPS Spy app with the registered email/key on your own phone to track the location of the other phone. Shows the last 24 hour of trace in 15 min increments.”

While the Trojan uploads the GPS data every 15 minutes to an application running on Google’s free App Engine service. GPS Spy then downloads the data and uses this service to conveniently display it as location points in Google Maps.

Well to have Tapsnake working attacker’s needs to have access to smartphones what is difficult and Android installation program notify users about any suspicious activities on the smartphone which is also a very good security measures.

For the best protection it is important to be careful during installing any third-party application on your mobile devices.